Dunno who said they were the same.
>
Joe Catron asked:
Do you know of any left theory that differentiates between them in any
intelligent way? (This isn't a rhetorical question; if you do, I'll be happy
to go read it, assuming it's shorter than Capital.)
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Marx anticipated the question and wrote:
Whether I buy a pair of trousers or whether I buy cloth and get a tailor to come to my house and pay him for this service (that is, his tailoring labour) in converting this cloth into trousers, is a matter of complete indifference to me, if all I am interested in is the trousers. I buy the trousers from the merchant-tailor instead of taking the latter course, because this latter course is more expensive, and the trousers cost less labour and are therefore cheaper when the capitalist tailor produces them than when I get them made by a jobbing tailor. But in both cases I transform the money with which I buy the trousers not into capital but into trousers; and in both cases it is for me only a matter of using the money as mere means of circulation, that is, of transforming it into this particular use-value. Here therefore the money does not function as capital, although in one case it exchanges for a commodity and in the other case it buys labour itself
as a commodity. It functions only as money, and more precisely, as means of circulation.
On the other hand the jobbing tailor [who works for me at my home] is not a productive labourer, although his labour provides me with the product, the trousers, and him with the price of his labour, the money. It may be that the quantity of labour performed by the jobbing tailor is greater than that contained in the price which he gets from me. And this is even probable, since the price of his labour is determined by the price which the productive tailor gets. This however is all the same so far as I am concerned. Once the price has been fixed, it is a matter of complete indifference to me whether he works eight or ten hours. What I am concerned with is only the use-valve, the trousers; and naturally, whether I buy them one way or the other, I am interested in paying as little as possible for them, but in one case neither less nor more than in the other; in other words, I am interested in paying only the normal price for them. This is an outlay for
my consumption; not an increase but a diminution of my money. It is in no way a means to my enrichment, any more than any other way of spending money for my personal consumption is a means to enrichment for me. full: http://marxists.kgprog.com/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add1.htm
Over and out, Mike B) ***********************************************************************
http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/